Tulane University Digital Library

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Early Images of Latin America

Description

"Early Images of Latin America" provides over 1,800 images from the Latin American Library’s Image Archive documenting people, places, landscapes, urban and rural scenes in various countries of the region from the mid-19th century to c. 1910. Images come from an array of sources, such as promotional albums compiled as travel souvenirs for tourists, studio portraits, personal photographic albums, glass lantern slides and stereoscopic images, as well as images captured by professional and amateur photographers. The geographic scope of the collection includes Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, Cuba, Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Panama, Peru, and Uruguay, with particular focus on the cities of Buenos Aires, Havana, Lima, Mexico City, Montevideo, Rio de Janeiro, San José de Costa Rica, and Tegucigalpa.

The collection features a variety of urban inhabitants and street scenes, waterfronts, botanical parks, and city architecture and landmarks. Rural views capture the production of coffee, bananas, tobacco, and sugar in haciendas and estancias, along with some portraits of local indigenous people, rural laborers, gauchos, and peasants. A selection from Panama highlights early phases of the construction of the Panama Canal and the daily life of people living and working along the Canal Zone. Included are several collections by some of the region's earliest and most prominent photographers such as Marc Ferrez, Courret y Hermanos, Abel Briquet, Sanfred Robinson, Antíoco Cruces y Luis Campa, Arturo W. Boote and Cía. among others.